DW3b

Ideas regarding whether African American Vernacular English should be considered a language or a dialect has been a topic for much debate for over fifty years. In the article Liberating American Ebonics from Euro-English by Arthur Palacas, Palacas raises the questions, “is American Ebonics a different language from English, is it a dialect of English, how does American Ebonics relate to the larger Ebonics picture?” In an attempt to answer these pressing questions, Palacas focuses on the grammatical patterns of Ebonics.
It is with Palacas’ numerous citations and references of linguists that he begins to formulate his argument that Standard English and Ebonics are drastically different languages. He reinforces the ideas previously stated by John Baugh, Guy Bailey, J.L. Dillard, Ralph Fasold, Salikoko Mufwene, John Rickford, Arthur Spears, William Stewart, Donald Winford, Walt Wolfram, and Geneva Smitherman, when he defines Ebonics as, “a rational, rule-governed linguistic system just like any other language or language variety and, therefore, deserving of the respect due any language or language variety; it is not just bad, broken, careless, or lazy English, not is it a degrading reflection of an untrained or even inferior intelligence.”
While many continue to regard Ebonics and Standard English as similar, Palacas dismisses this, saying that,
the emphasis on similarity and relationship…devaluates the difference and sends a message that eases the burden of teacher training when the actual need is for teachers to be trained much more in grammatical application so that they have the tools for effectively dealing with linguistic difference in the classroom as practitioners of applied linguistics.
Palacas acknowledges the responsibility of teachers to become informed. He understands the difficultly in learning a second dialect. This is the reason that Palacas, along with many linguists, make the differentiation between Standard English and Ebonics. Standard English and Ebonics should not be considered similar because they are separate systems with different rules.
Palacas does an effective job at making an argument about African American Vernacular English in his article. It can be seen through the references he uses, that thinks that Ebonics should have a place in composition studies. Palacas believes that due to the many grammatical features, including the differences in inflection, agreement, noun clauses and verb phrases, that Ebonics and Standard English are different languages.